Blood and Rhetoric
by What Ithacas Mean
Summary: Courtesy of Orlesian politics, Leonie Caron is despatched to Ferelden after Kallian Tabris has dealt with the Architect and the Mother. Chapter 2.2: Highever is always so welcoming.
1. Chapter 1

I've started writing a post-DA:A fic. Because it's not like I have enough to do already.

I am possessed of vague ambitions to make it a ten-year _meanwhile, back in Ferelden_ to match DA2's happenings. This isn't likely, but if anyone'd like to beta or kick ideas (anthills?) over with me, I can't say I wouldn't appreciate it.

**title:** Blood and Rhetoric, Chapter 1.1  
><strong>characters:<strong> Leonie Caron, for now. Potentially full cast.  
><strong>rating:<strong> T.  
><strong>words:<strong> c1000  
><strong>exegesis:<strong> Courtesy of Orlesian politics, Leonie Caron is despatched to Ferelden _after_ Kallian Tabris has dealt with the Architect and the Mother. 

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><p><em>PLAYER: [...] I can do you blood and love without the rhetoric, and I can do you blood and rhetoric without the love, and I can do you all three concurrent or consecutive, but I can't do you love and rhetoric without the blood. Blood is compulsory — they're all blood, you see.<em>

~Tom Stoppard, _Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead_. 

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><p><em>Val Royeaux, Orlais<em>.  
><em>Justinian, 9:31 Dragon<em>.

Two yards' width separated the cell's age-scummed brick walls. A narrow slit set near the roof's low vault let in little light, even at noon. The patch of sunbeam never crept more than halfway down the thick oaken door opposite. The summer stench of Val Royeaux's sewers hung thick in the stifling dimness, all but drowning the rankness of unwashed sweat and the cloying cessbucket wedged in one corner.

Leonie Caron sat on the filthy flagstones, shoulders resting against rough brick, and counted hours in the silence. Not true silence, but the cells of the Tour Sanglante attenuated the city's clamour. Until yesterday, she had had a neighbour, a man who babbled and moaned in the adjacent cell, a weeping more unnerving than any quiet. But the guards had come for him near dusk, three sets of booted feet and jingling mail on the stair, and taken him down. Unconscious or dead: she recognised the scrape of an unresisting body dragging against the floor. Since then, silence. Even the trusty who brought her meagre meals and emptied the bucket had done so without speaking.

The hours added up, trickled away. In late afternoon, the trusty brought soup and hard black bread, under the eyes of a stern-faced guard with a levelled crossbow. Caron ate with disciplined slowness. She used her fingers to glean the last of the soup from the wooden bowl. The food was sufficient to keep an ordinary woman from starving, if barely, but for her, the ration was meagre indeed. Three days had weakened her already: many more and her legs would fail her when it came time to go to her fate.

After more than a decade as a Grey Warden, the prospect of death held little terror. Whatever execution the Empress could devise would be less horrifying than the deaths her fellow Wardens went to as a matter of routine.

The thought amused her. Her lips were still quirked when the cell door swung wide.

"Something funny, Caron?"

Guy de Boismarron spanned the doorway. A massive man even in his youth, five years as Commander of the Grey in Orlais had added more breadth to his shoulders to go with the grey in his auburn braid. The hard light in his eyes as he stepped into the tiny cell banished the humour from her lips and drove her to her feet.

"No, Commander." _Don't flinch, blight it._ Less than the length of an arm separated them. Caron saluted with crossed arms and watched the tight lines at the corner of his eyes draw even tighter at the rattle of the bar being drawn home. Sweat dampened the crease on the shoulder of his white-on-blue Warden tabard where his baldric should have hung. Of course, the Chevalier Commandant would never have permitted him to enter the Sanglante armed.

"Good." Fabric rustled as he leaned back against the door. His lips pressed tight above his beard. "Because I don't see anything funny here. Raoul de Guillac, Caron? The empress's _favourite_?"

Quietly: "It was necessary."

"To duel him? To kill him? To bring Celene's displeasure down upon the Order? This isn't Mont-de-glace, Caron, it's Val Royeaux! We can't do our work without at the very least the empress's _toleration_." A muscle jumped in his cheek, sharp anger clear in every clenched line of his body. "And you set that in jeopardy for what? Your own _satisfaction_?"

"I won't deny I found it satisfying. But that's not why I did it." Caron bit her lip and met his hazel gaze steadily. The stone walls were thick. The door, once shut, sufficiently dense to dull the passage of sound. Little chance of eavesdroppers, but she lowered her voice to a breath above whisper anyway. "He'd tried to blackmail one of our mages, Guy. Somehow he discovered Marguerite does... things the Divine would not approve of, if she knew." _Blood magic_, but it was risky enough to say the words aloud in the Wardens' own compound in Val Royeaux. She wouldn't dare whisper them in the Sanglante. The Grey already had their share of problems with Crown and Chantry without admitting to harbouring maleficar. "She came to me after he asked her for political favours, things which would not redound to the Order's credit if one of our own was involved. It would've been very difficult to remove him quietly, in a timely fashion. That's one reason Marguerite didn't take care of it herself. So I... arranged things so that he would have no choice but to challenge me. And the rest you know."

Arranging matters so that de Guillac - the worm - had thought the challenge was his idea had taken careful and creative acting. The empress's father had outlawed duelling, but among the nobility the practice continued. It was fashionable to boast of one's ability to kill. De Guillac had boasted often. He had lasted all of three heartbeats, facing her.

"The rest I know," de Boismarron repeated, softly. He exhaled, rubbed a tired hand across his eyes. "Maker's breath, Leonie. You're my Second. You should have _told_ me."

"No, I shouldn't." There hadn't been enough room in the cell to pace when she'd been alone in its confines, blight it. "If I had told you, Commander, you wouldn't be able to wash your hands of me. You don't lie well enough to convince an imperial courtier." Her mouth twitched. "Neither, for that matter, do I."

"Maker." De Boismarron blew a frustrated breath. "You'll be the death of me yet."

An unfortunate choice of words. By the wince in his face, he seemed to realise it. Caron gathered her courage. "Am I to be executed here, then?" _Don't flinch._ She tightened her jaw. "Or will Her Majesty permit me to die a Warden, in the Deep Roads?"

_Not that I'm looking forward to either. But if you can't take a joke, you shouldn't have joined._

De Boismarron snorted. "You're lucky, Leonie. If I hadn't had a letter from the sodding Hero of blighted Ferelden asking for an experienced Warden, our glorious empress would have had you drawn and quartered. But Her Majesty proved amenable to the idea that banishment to the land of dogs and Blight thaw is a fate worse than death. So." He shifted his weight. "You get to keep your head. At least for now."

For now. The last dozen Wardens sent to Ferelden had died within weeks of their arrival. But - _You're in no position to cavil, Caron. Not when you didn't expect to live out the week._ She exhaled. "Commander." And saluted. "When do I leave?"

"The next ship for Highever departs on tomorrow's evening tide. I'll have your travelling kit taken aboard with my dispatches, and the Chevalier Commandant will see you escorted aboard and your weapons returned to you before it casts off. Until then" - a crooked smile that failed to reach his eyes - "you'll continue to enjoy the Sanglante's hospitality."

"Understood."

He rapped scarred knuckles heavily on the door. In the moments before the bar scraped back to let him depart, de Boismarron treated her to the full weight of his regard. "Don't fuck it up, Caron. If you piss off the _Fereldans_, there won't be anything I can do."


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: I'm not here. Not really. But I rediscovered this last night, in the depths of my harddrive_._ I'm at a point in the whole snowed-under-by-life thing where I could really use some encouragement to find writing _fun_ again, so, you know, sing out if you think this is worth carrying on with.

Not that I'm able to make any commitments, dammit.

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><p><strong>title:<strong> Blood and Rhetoric, Chapter 1.2  
><strong>characters:<strong> Leonie Caron, for now. Potentially full cast.  
><strong>rating:<strong> T.  
><strong>words:<strong> c1500  
><strong>exegesis:<strong> Courtesy of Orlesian politics, Leonie Caron is despatched to Ferelden _after_ Kallian Tabris has dealt with the Architect and the Mother. Chapter 1.2: Leonie Caron meets a fellow-traveller.

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><p><em>Val Royeaux, Orlais<em>.  
><em>Justinian, 9:31 Dragon<em>.

After the Sanglante, the sour bilge-odour of the docks could have been fine Antivan perfume to Caron's nose. Better than Antivan perfume: salt air and rotting weed never made her sneeze. She grinned as the lemon-faced chevalier - scarcely old enough to shave, and already disapproving - in charge of her three-man escort dabbed at his upper lip with a scented kerchief. _Boy's never smelled a battlefield._

The guard detail amused her in its superfluity. She would have left on Guy de Boismarron's word alone, and if she wanted to stay -

Well, it took more than four men to take a Warden down.

They made an odd procession, threading their way through the bales and carts crowding the wharves. Hoarse-voiced pursers shrieked, barefoot sailors - hair done back in tarred queues - hauled, cattle lowed and pigs shrieked. Grubby children and slender elves darted through the tumult. The disapproving chevalier in his polished, creaking armour and well-oiled quiff was as out of place as a qunari in the Arbour Wilds. The three guards - two with their hands on their swordhilts, the third carrying the sword that would be returned to her as soon as she left Orlesian soil - gleamed only slightly less in the red evening sun. De Boismarron had ensured that Caron had received a clean tunic and doublet in Warden colours for her departure, but beside her escort, she was a gaunt, straw-haired scarecrow, tall and scarred and weathered. A starveling wolf beside well-groomed hounds.

The comparison widened her grin. Exile was a light burden to bear, all things considered: she refused to brood away a heartbeat of the time she had left under the sun in pining and regrets.

"Warden," Sieur Lemon-Face said, at the gangplank of a Kirkwall-built caravel. Faded letters traced the name _Swift_ across her bow. "Your ship."

There was a steward present, and a couple of barefoot sailors, checking netted bales against a list. A net of sacks dangled in midair from a hoist ran between blocks rigged from the maintop, being swayed up and into the waist by a team of sweating sailors. One of the dockside sailors wiped his hands on his tunic and sauntered towards them. "Help you, lords and lady?" he offered in the common tongue.

The chevalier's expression grew, if possible, even more sour. "This woman," he said, his Orlesian icy, "is to take passage on this vessel to Highever. See that she goes aboard."

The sailor eyed the chevalier. "This'd be the lady Warden, then? Right, then." And to Caron, still in the common tongue: "Pleasure, serrah. You be right timely: we'm nobbut an hour before the tide. Purser, he got your kit stowed aft: I'd be right glad to get you squared away."

"Thank you," Caron said. And to the chevalier, making her tone deliberately mild. "Thank you for your escort, m'sieur. My blade, if you please."

He spat at her feet, but waved the guard to hand over her sword. With it belted securely once more at her hip, she inclined her head the sailor. "Lead on, if you please."

"Go below, serrah?" he asked, as he handed her lightly onto the deck's pale boards. "Captain'll want to give you greeting after we'm underway, but himself's a mite distracted just the now."

Caron shook her head. Four days' close confinement disinclined her to exchange one cramped space for another. "I'll stay on deck, if I'm not in the way."

This proved acceptable. The sailor - who named himself as Bran, originally of Cumberland - led her to the bow and left her there, with dire but heartfelt warnings to keep her hands away from the lines, the belaying-pins - from anything remotely to do with the running of the ship. Hunger snarled in her stomach. She ignored it and leaned elbows on the rail, gazing idly down at the wharf. The breeze that clamoured in the shrouds and bore the keening gulls aloft trailed light fingers across her nape. Sieur Lemon-Face still stood at the foot of the gangplank, arms crossed, staring up at her. No doubt he intended to wait until the _Swift _had cast off, and had passed beyond any distance from which she could even _swim_ to shore before he left the wharf.

For the first time, she put the thought in words. _Orlais is no longer my home._

Despite all her resolve, it soured her temper.

"He looks a remarkably ill-tempered sort, even for a chevalier," a mild voice remarked at her shoulder. Caron tamped down an instinctive twitch towards her weapon. The speaker had light footsteps. Wood creaked as she settled at the rail an arm's length aft of Caron, and tilted her head towards the wharf. "Friend of yours?"

Caron snorted. "Not in the least." She eyed the newcomer sidelong. The robes of a Chantry sister - the bright orange embroidery sun-faded, the brown wool worn and nubbed with use - bunched in slack folds around her wrists, hiding her hands where they rested on the rail. Her hair, an unusually vivid red in hue, framed her jawline in a boyish bowl. The breeze strayed thin strands across her cheek. _And I have fifteen years on her if I've a day. _"May I assume you're also bound for Highever, Sister? Bringing," dryly, "good Andrastean aid and succour to the Blighted lands?"

"That is what good Andrasteans do, is it not?" the sister agreed, easily. A fleeting wryness creased her lips, and something else, something that Caron couldn't quite identify. Amusement, perhaps. "You must be the Warden. It seems we two are the only passengers. The ship has been quite buzzing with rumours about you since this morning. Have you ever travelled to Ferelden before?"

"Not across the border. As far as Jader, only." And sitting in Jader's rustic confines for a year while a Blight raged just across the border, with only occasional bands of scattered darkspawn to hunt for diversion, had been damnably frustrating. Worse, her lack of direct knowledge might yet prove troublesome._ Map-learning is all well and good, but the map is not the territory. _She would have to travel from Highever to Amaranthine: Caron rather doubted the Ferelden Wardens were expecting her arrival, if de Boismarron had indeed arranged for her to be marched aboard the _first_ ship leaving Val Royeaux. _Guy, you'd best have sent me travelling funds._ "I doubt I'll find a warm welcome."

"You might be surprised." The sister tilted her head consideringly. For the first time, Caron had a clear view of more than just her profile, and she revised her estimate of the sister's age upwards. _Not a girl, a woman. _The crinkles at the corner of her blue-green eyes and the thin white scar that trailed along her hairline belonged to someone who'd had time to grow out of the first flush of youth. "I think you'll find that _Grey Warden_ outweighs _Orlesian_ in Ferelden, these days."

Caron's eyebrows lifted. "You know the country well?" That would be odd, for an Orlesian sister, unless she was border-bred.

To her astonishment, the sister laughed. Long, and hard, almost doubled over the rail with the force of her merriment. "Forgive me, Warden," she managed after a moment, knuckling tears from the corner of her eye. "Know it well? I spent more than a year travelling Ferelden's roads, from the Wilds to the Frostbacks. I have maps engraved behind my eyelids and Fereldan mud in my bones." She straightened, her humour subsiding into pensiveness. Softly, she said, "I did not think I would miss it so much, when I left Denerim. But life surprises us all, no?"

_That it does. _But the wistfulness in the sister's voice surprised her. "You were there during the Blight? A Chantry sister from Orlais?" _When petty politics kept the entire Order stuck in Jader with their thumbs up their asses, because we couldn't afford to annoy either the empress or the Fereldans' bloody regent. Maker, we should have asked the Divine for robes._

"I may have lived most of my life in Orlais, but I am Ferelden born." An expressive shrug. "As for Chantry sister - true, as far as it goes, but I'm not an affirmed sister, Warden. Merely a lay one."

Caron bit her lower lip and stared down. A hand of water showed in the shadow between the ship's hull and the wooden piling of the wharf, dark and oily, thick with weed and murk. The water struck her as an apt metaphor for her understanding of the land that was to become her home. It irked her pride. "Perhaps I might prevail upon you to instruct me concerning Ferelden, if it should not inconvenience you, before we make landfall at Highever?" Wryly: "If rumour has reached you, it no doubt included the fact that my departure was planned in haste."

"And your shocking duel with Sieur de Guillac had nothing to do with it," the sister agreed, straight-faced. Bird-like, she tilted her head and widened her blue eyes guilelessly. "I will be glad to help you. But - how shocking! - we have yet to be properly introduced!"

A sense of humour, this one. Like poor dead Kristoff, the long months in Jader, whose light mocking courtesy had held them all sane. Caron swallowed her chuckle and, solemn, made as graceful a leg as the ship's deck permitted. "Forgive my rudeness, Sister. I am Leonie Caron, Warden. Might I have the honour of your name?"

"My name," the sister said, with the air of one bestowing possession of a secret, "is Leliana."


	3. Chapter 3

**title:** "Blood and Rhetoric"

**chapter: **2.1**  
><strong>

**characters:** Tabris, Nathaniel, Fergus Cousland.

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><p>8<p>

From Amaranthine to Highever, the high road skirted the edges of the sea. The northern part of Ferelden rose in great rocky headlands, sea-cliffs that sloped away inland to fields rustling yellow with summer grain. Paved stones of the Old Tevinter highway made a dividing ribbon between cultivated land and scrub-grass and heather cropped by goats' blunt teeth. The breeze that stirred the grasses of the road's verge carried the scent of brine and the distant booming rush of wave on rock.

Perfect country for smugglers and sea-harriers. Even more so now, with half the watch towers in the teyrnir of Highever burned out or undermanned on account of two years of war and disturbance. Cousland had faced a daunting task in bringing stability to his demesne. He had done much already -

_But the impossible_, Kallian Tabris reflected, eyeing the scrubby growth and tumbled rocky outcrops flanking the road ahead, _always takes a little longer. _

If, two years ago, someone had told her that she'd be not only a Grey Warden - _Commander _of the Grey Wardens in Ferelden, all three of them - but an intimate of the king and acting arlessa of one of the country's oldest arlings, she would've laughed in their face and gone looking for the asshole who'd slipped ergot in the beer.

If they'd told her she'd find herself trudging the Highever road on her way to the betrothal of Fergus Cousland, Teyrn of Highever and Ethelfred, youngest sister of Bann Alfstanna of Waking Sea, she might have been less sceptical. But she'd never have dreamed she would attend as Cousland's neighbour, a guest invited to witness the posting of the banns.

She fingered the leather binding of her swordhilt meditatively, dropping her left hand to Reaver's wiry scruff. The mabari bumped his massive head gently against her thigh, before loping off to investigate the verge.

"Think we'll see trouble?" she said to her other companion. He was a tall man, lean, and taciturn, with a trick to moving near-soundless even in his light mail. At the moment he carried his longbow slung over one shoulder, the better to lead their obstinate, ancient packmule.

"The teyrn," Nathaniel Howe said, with morbid certainty, "is going to kill me." He scowled as the mule rolled one eye and snapped her teeth at him, and slid his right hand higher on the leadrope towards her halter. "That is, if this blighted mule doesn't do so first."

"You're a Grey Warden now. Cousland has to go through me to get to you." _And he's going to have to get used to dealing with you, since after me, you're the senior Warden, and his lands border Amaranthine. I can't stay at the Vigil forever._ But since that was two-thirds of the reason she'd chosen him to accompany her and Nathaniel already knew it, Kallian forbore to repeat herself. "And I meant on the _road_, Longshanks."

"Then -" Nathaniel made a show of surveying their surroundings "- I doubt it, Commander." He flicked the mule on her muzzle irritatedly with the end of the leadrope when her snapping teeth darted for his shoulder. "Maker's breath, you blighted creature, be _still_. We're only a couple of hours from Highever town - we'll be able to see it soon, over the next dip in the land - and Cousland's letter said he's cleared out the brigands within two days' ride."

"Brigands." Kallian's lips quirked, sourly. _Half of them refugees run off their land and starving because of the Blight, and the other half - _Deserters from dead men's armies, for the most part: neither Rendon Howe nor Loghain Mac Tir would ever pay another hired sword's wages, but civil war and Blight had left plenty of armed men who'd found intimidation and murder an easier way to make a living than honest work. "Pity," she said, as Reaver came bounding back licking his chops and shaking dust from his coat, tail awag with doggy joy. "Brigands might have a better mule."

Nathaniel chuckled. It had taken fire and storm and siege, Kallian reflected, but he'd finally got past seeing her as _the elf who killed my father_ and begun to relax a little in her company. Her trust in _him_, at least, had borne fruit. _But no more trusting smartmouth mages._

Damn Anders for running off in the night without a word, anyway.

Highever sprawled across one side of a deep bay, a neat town of slate-roofed houses defended by high granite walls. The keep stood solitary on a headland, overlooking the harbour, the charred stonework of its eastern tower wreathed in scaffolding. A handful of lumbering coastal traders lay at anchor in the bay. Out in the channel a Rivaini barque beat back and forth against the wind, and the sails of a fishing fleet were strung out along the horizon like a line of coloured beads

Kallian let Nathaniel take the lead on the well-travelled road around the town walls to Castle Highever. Habits acquired as a wanted fugitive were hard to break. _And it helps that Nathaniel's human. Carts are more likely to get out of the way for him than for me. _The way of the world: she'd learned early there was little point in nursing any bitterness for it.

Carpenters' tools and piles of dressed stone jumbled the courtyard of Castle Highever. A constructive, ordered sort of chaos: after Denerim and Amaranthine, Kallian had experience enough to judge. At the gate, a youthful soldier, intimidated into politeness after his first challenge by Nathaniel's scowling rebuke - Longshanks had a pointed aristocratic delivery on _This is the Hero of Ferelden, puppy! Commander of the Grey Wardens and friend of the King! _for those who raised their eyebrows at an elf: he'd started to get really good at it - summoned the seneschal and a boy for their mule.

The seneschal, a greying man who could have been Varel's long-lost brother, responded to their griffon tabards with rather more respect. "Warden-Commander Kallian? We did not look for your arrival before tomorrow, my lady. The teyrn will be glad to see you." His eyes flickered to Nathaniel, and his tone hardened. "Less so your companion, I am afraid. I must wonder why he accompanies you. Teyrn Fergus is not alone in having lost kin to this man's father, though his loss is particularly grievous. There is little affection here for the name of Howe."

"I'll be glad to see the teyrn." At Kallian's shoulder, Nathaniel shifted uncomfortably. She gave him a reassuring glance. _Stand, Longshanks. Let's see some of that stiff noble pride. _"But first I should make something clear, Ser Gabran." Her voice grew chill. "Nathaniel is a Grey Warden. He bears no responsibility for his father's actions - I would not insult Fergus by bringing him under the teyrn's roof if that were the case - but it makes no difference to what he is now. The man he was died when he joined the Order. The man who stands beside me today is not Nathaniel the _Howe_ but Nathaniel the _Warden_, my brother. Respect him as such, if you please."

The seneschal bowed, stiff. "I hope the teyrn may see it so." Implicit in his tone: _I do not._ Well, so be it. That was his problem, not hers, unless Fergus chose to be difficult. "His grace is overseeing the work on the east wall, if you wish to make your respects. Leave your baggage with the boy, and I'll send one of the elves" - his glance flicked to Kallian's ears - "to show you to your rooms afterwards. For myself, there is much work to do."

He stalked away in the direction of the keep without waiting for a reply, a straight-backed figure in old-fashioned arming robes. Thoughtful, Kallian watched the proud line of his shoulders disappear behind the scaffolding. "I do believe, Longshanks," she said, "that Alistair is going to have more trouble than he's been anticipating this autumn, when he comes to ennoble my cousin and settle the bannorn of Amaranthine town on your sister."

Nathaniel snorted. "You expected otherwise?"

"I'm not sure what I expected." She hooked her thumbs behind her belt buckle. "Come on. Let's go pay our courtesies."

The noise of tools, the cursing of masons, and the creak of blocks being swayed up scaffolding on pulleys rang out loud enough to be heard from the stableyard. The teyrn didn't prove hard to find. Fergus Cousland stood square-hipped on the driver's bench of an unloaded cart, the palm of one hand shading his eyes as he watched the hectic clamour of the work.

"My lord teyrn," Kallian said, as she came level with the cart. And again, louder, "My lord teyrn!"

Cousland glanced around. Despite the knotted scar tissue that crawled up his neck to trail from his left jaw to his temple, he could still be accounted a handsome man; broad-shouldered, dark of eye and hair, with a commanding presence that put Kallian in mind of his sister, Alistair's queen. "Kallian!" His expression lit when his eyes fell on Kallian, but instantly shadowed. "And Warden Nathaniel, I see. You have some nerve, Tabris, bringing a _Howe _here."

"Your grace," Nathaniel said tonelessly, abasing himself in a bow far lower than strict etiquette demanded.

Kallian gave Cousland a cold stare. "Nathaniel shares with me the honour of expecting a short life and a brutal death for the sake of men like you, my lord teyrn. Are you really going to hold his father's acts against him, acts of which he had no knowledge and for which he bears no responsibility? I had thought you a fairer man than to judge someone by another's deeds, and not his own. Was I wrong?"

Fergus Cousland's jaw tightened. Kallian was reminded that despite having had - and lost - a wife and son, he was still a young man, as the nobility accounted such things. Young, and proud. For a moment she worried she'd pushed him too hard. The aftermath of Denerim's siege and the pageant surrounding Alistair's hasty royal wedding to his sister hadn't been the _best_ time and place to get a handle on his mettle. _I know there's a limit to how far I can press his goodwill. But let's see if he's the man I took him for._

Then the teyrn exhaled, passing a hand over his face. "You shame me, Warden-Commander," he said, softly. "You're right, that was unjust. Nathaniel..." He paused, obviously searching for the right words. "It's not easy, to lose so much. I can't promise not to hold your father against you, Nate. But I'll try."

"Thank you." Nathaniel glanced from Kallian to Cousland, and hesitated. "I'm... sorry. About your family. Delilah told me what our father had become, but I was away in the Free Marches. Maybe if I'd been at home, I could have..."

"What?" Cousland's eyes were an old man's, quiet and ironic. "Stopped him? You don't know how often I've been down that path, Nate. Trust me, it doesn't lead anywhere good. What's done is done. Those of us who survived just have to live with it, Maker help us." He sighed. "And speaking of living with it... My soon-to-be betrothed arrived last night. You're the first of the guests to arrive, apart from her family. You've met Alfstanna, of course, Warden-Commander, but I should show you up and introduce you to the lady and her companion."

Kallian's eyebrows rose. "Still in the dust of the road? My lord -"

"Why not?" When the teyrn grinned, it chased all shadows from his face. He jumped down from the cartbed, landing lightly on the balls of his feet. "This is a working keep. Armour's as good as court dress around here, especially for a pair of famed Grey Wardens."

"I've spent long enough in armour, my lord, to enjoy the occasions when it's not an absolute requirement." Wry: "But if your lordship _insists_ -"

"Maker, of course not." Fergus's grin quirked, pulling at his scar. "I know you must want to wash and change. You'll forgive me for teasing."

"You have your sister's sense of humour, my lord."

"Really? I'd say she has mine. And, Warden-Commander? You're on first-name terms with the King and with my sister. You may as well call me Fergus in private."

_It's hard not to be on first-name terms with a man who calls you "sister" and looks horrified and self-conscious when you use his title._ Alistair's insistence on informality between them, even in public, had given rise to a number of rumours about the _depths_ of their familiarity. By the challenging glint in Cousland's eye, he'd heard at least some of them. _Well, I can count on Lissa Cousland to have told her brother that I was never Alistair's woman. Let's just hope he believed her. _Kallian hid her sigh, and forced a smile. "You honour me, my lord - Fergus."

He wasn't, she thought, a bad man for a teyrn.


	4. Chapter 4

**title:** "Blood and Rhetoric"

**chapter: **2.2**  
><strong>

**rating:** T.

**words:** c.3,00

**exegesis: **An uncomfortable formal dinner at Castle Highever.

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_Castle Highever_

_Justinian, 9:31 Dragon_

An hour later, bathed and changed into the formal dress of the Wardens - soft Antivan leather boots in the courtly style, laced grey knee-breeches, and a blue velvet doublet embroidered with silver griffins over a shirt of plain white linen - Kallian belted on her swordhanger and rapped her knuckles against the door that connected her apartments to Nate's chamber. "Ready, Longshanks?"

She'd arranged for Reaver to eat with the hounds from Cousland's kennels. The mabari didn't do well at feasts - he always managed to beg something far too rich for him, with predictable and unpleasant results - but she missed the comforting nudge of his head against her hip.

"Not in the least." The open door revealed a fresh-bathed Nathaniel Howe, his long hair drawn back into a braid and fastened with a silver clasp, in identical garments - well, his doublet was linen, rather than velvet, and the embroidery white instead of silver. Varel had insisted that if the Commander of the Grey could not be persuaded into court gowns, her dress should at _least_ be distinguished in some fashion from the rest of the Order. "You do realise half the people in this keep are plotting ways to kill me?"

"Lucky for you, you've studied poisons." She eyed his belt - suspiciously wide, considering he was only carrying one dagger and an eating knife - and thought she saw the bulge of concealed vials. "I take it you brought a wide selection of antidotes?"

"And _none_ of them are leaving my person." Nathaniel grimaced. "You know I hate formal dinners? I thought that was the one good thing about joining the Wardens - I'd never have to sit through another formal dinner and make polite conversation with people who either resent me or want something from me. Or both."

"Surprise," Kallian said, dryly. "You'd hate what Alistair made me go through in Denerim." She sighed. Maker, she missed Leliana. The bard - her amusement, her unabashed enthusiasm for courtly gaiety, her clever eye and careful advice - had been the only thing that made Denerim's courtly round halfway bearable. "If it's any consolation, Longshanks, I don't like it either. Chin up. We have to show the banner. Try not to let anyone kill you, and if anyone makes the attempt, let me know."

"As my lady commands," he said, a flicker of irony in his eyes, and swept a courtly bow as she preceded him out the door.

Dinner took place in the great hall. The walls, hung with many lanterns, showed patches of fresh white plaster from repairs between mended and new tapestries. It was not yet quite the hour for serving, and Fergus Cousland broke off from a conversation with two of his armsmen to intercept Kallian and Nathaniel at the door. His doublet was russet silk, embroidered with gold thread. Pearls glittered on his collar, and gold armlets encircled his wrists.

_And I will not think about how much they'd fetch if I fenced them. The Warden-Commander of Ferelden is not a thief. Well, not often, anyway. Not anymore.  
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"Kallian," he said, softly. "I should warn you about one thing before dinner. Ethelfred is Alfstanna's _half_-sister by a different mother. She's nearly twenty years younger than the bann, and while she's personable enough, and clever, or I wouldn't have offered for her, I suspect she may be a little... old-fashioned, in her opinions."

_Old-fashioned._ That could mean any number of things, but the way the teyrn's glance flicked to the tips of her ears - "You mean," Kallian said, dryly, "that's she's too well-bred to call me a knife-eared guttersnipe in public, but she'll think it very loudly?"

"_Commander_," Nathaniel hissed, dismayed. She ignored him. Despite the archdemon's death and Lissa Cousland's quiet unflinching support - Alistair's support being anything _but_ quiet - she'd had to grit her teeth and smile through far too many careless insults in Denerim to be at all sanguine about Lady Ethelfred's reaction to being _introduced_ to a knife-ear from the alienage. If the girl took against her, she'd survive it, but it would be awkward for Cousland. And for the prospect of good neighbourly relations between the Wardens and the teyrna.

Cousland winced. "I wouldn't have put it that way. But yes. I doubt she will be comfortable in your presence. Ferelden already owes you much, Kallian, and I owe you a personal debt for my sister's life and freedom. I hope you won't take it amiss if I ask you to be patient with Lady Ethelfred. She's still very young, and in time I expect she'll come to respect you as much as my sister and I do."

A pretty speech. She thought he even meant it, though how much was because saving his sister and killing an archdemon had taken her out of the category of _elf_ and into the category of _something else entirely_ was hard to tell. "My lord," she said, noncommittal, and inclined her head.

He seemed to take it for agreement. "Come, sit. Ser Gabran you know already. This is Ser Tirien, my captain" - a spare, plain woman in a green gown, with a swordswoman's calluses on her hands - "and my chatelaine, Lady Gwendolen Gilmore." An older woman, gowned in widow's black, with keys hung from her belt.

"A pleasure." Kallian made her bow, Nathaniel an elegant shadow behind her. Ser Tirien gave a small, distant smile and murmured something polite. Lady Gilmore did not smile. The look she bestowed upon Nathaniel that of a woman who has seen a maggot in her meat. _Lovely. Someone else who wants to exhume Rendon Howe and jump up and down on his corpse._

The high table was laid for nine. By Kallian's count, and considering the evidence of the teyrn's diminished household - the civil war and the Blight between them had taken their toll on noble lords, ladies and knights of status, to say nothing of Highever's own _particular_ misfortunes - that left three guests of rank still to enter. Kallian found herself seated at Fergus's left hand - the place of honour being reserved for the still-absent Ethelfred - with an empty space at her left. If she grasped seating etiquette correctly, _that_ place was left for a guest from the betrothal party. Lady Gilmore, the chatelaine, commanded the foot of the table, with Sir Gabran - engaging her in quiet, intense discussion - and Ser Tirien flanking her.

The rest of the household - armsmen and upper servants - began to assemble at the lower tables. A ginger-haired minstrel took up a position by the hearth and began to play a spritely version of an old ballad on a well-polished lap harp. _Oh stay your hand, Lord Judge! Oh stay your hand a while! I think I see my own father, come travelling many a mile!_ Reminded of Leliana, Kallian bit her lip and turned her head aside. Nathaniel caught her eye and smiled crookedly in sympathy, before turning to address the lady knight beside him. "Ser Tirien. Tirien of Gloverforth, if I'm not mistaken? Your nephew Maric and I were squires together in the Free Marches. How does your brother Bann Geoffrey?"

"He does that well," Fergus murmured in her ear, as Tirien's stern, distant face came alive. "When we were younger, he was useless at small talk. I was, too, until Mother beat it into me."

"You were friends?"

A shadow crossed his face. "Were. Yes. We were of an age. When Rendon sent him to the Marches, he was sixteen. I was a year older. Until then, I'd thought we might squire together. But my father sent me to Denerim, to squire for Cailan, and then to Antiva... Do you know, I'd forgotten, but when I was - oh, fifteen, I must have been - Nate asked Father if he could be _his_ squire? He was so disappointed when Rendon sent him away." He shook his head, as if shaking off a memory, and said, softly: "You were right, before, to remind me that Nate is not his father, and I thank you for it."

She would have said something in reply, but at that moment a servant opened the great doors and announced in a carrying voice, "Bann Alfstanna of Waking Sea! Her sister, Lady Ethelfred of Waking Sea! Her cousin, Lady Marjorie of Helmsford!"

The hall rose in a rustle of cloth and a shuffling of feet, and the high table rose with them. Afstanna wore her embroidered gown - russet and yellow, decorated with the emblem of her bannorn - with the same martial pride Kallian remembered from Denerim. The bann had led her men personally, and the wound she'd taken in the battle had left a hitch in her step, but she walked without a cane.

The two girls - and they were girls, for neither could be much older than sixteen - who entered in her wake had little of Alstanna's commanding presence. The one on the right - Ethelfred - had features stamped from the same mould as the bann, but her mouth was fuller, softer. She wore her brown hair in the coiled braids that Anora had made popular in Cailan's reign, held back by a silver chaplet. Her green and russet gown clung to her figure: where Alfstanna was medium-tall and spare, Ethelfred was short and plump. Her companion, tall and fair-haired and plain of face, wore simple russet, without very much embroidery, and looked ill-at-ease with the flowing skirts of her gown.

"My ladies." Fergus made a courtly leg as the servant escorted the newcomers to the high table. Ethelfred received the place of honour at Fergus's right, with Alfstanna at _her_ right, while the plain girl - Lady Marjorie - took the seat down from Kallian with a small, uncertain smile. "My household you know, and Bann Alfstanna, you know our guests already, I'm sure - but Lady Ethelfred, may I present to you Kallian Tabris, Commander of the Grey Wardens and Hero of Ferelden, and the Warden Nathaniel. Kallian, Lady Ethelfred and her cousin, Marjorie of Helmsford."

"Bann Alfstanna," Kallian said, mildly. "My ladies. An honour."

Ethelfred's lips tightened in distaste as she nodded across the table to Kallian. "It's an honour to meet the Hero of Ferelden, I'm sure," she said, as stiffly as though she were performing the lines in a very bad play. "Lady Kallian."

"It's just Warden Kallian." Kallian made her smile wide and friendly despite the other woman's evident discomfort. _Oh, well, Fergus, at least she's not Habren Bryland. Maybe she'll grow out of it._ "Or Commander, these days, I suppose: Grey Wardens hold no titles outside the order."

Alfstanna raised an eyebrow, leaning forward on her elbows. "But didn't His Majesty give you Amaranthine?"

"Technically." Kallian's mouth quirked. "Alistair gave the _arling_ to the order, and the arl's seat in the Landsmeet to the Warden-Commander of Ferelden. You have no idea how long he and the teyrn's lady sister and Eamon went round arguing about the arl's _title_. Eventually, we compromised. I have an arl's precedence for life as the Hero of Ferelden - though I could strangle him for that ridiculous title - and whoever commands the Grey in Ferelden will have the arling and an arl's precedence, but not the title itself." A complicated game of semantics, but it avoided the awkwardness of _officially_ subordinating the order in Ferelden to the Crown, which an arl's oath of fealty would do. Alistair had recognised the implications, when she'd pointed them out: the Commander of the Grey _could not_ fulfil the military obligations that a great noble had to the Crown, not without jeopardising the neutrality the order needed to survive. And not without jeopardising the Wardens' first responsibility as the first line of defence against the darkspawn.

"My sister wrote me about that." Cousland's glance was wry as the servers began bringing in the platters from the kitchen. "I understand Arl Eamon was not best pleased at giving one of the country's richest arlings to a military order who owes - what was the phrase? _Allegiance to no king?_"

_The templars also owe allegiance to no king._ But it would be impolitic to say so. The Chantry, as had become all too apparent since Kallian had taken command in Amaranthine, had its fingers in far too many pies for anyone to offend. But she needed to rebut Eamon's too-easily flung accusation -

"We owe allegiance to Thedas, your grace." Nathaniel spoke before she could, soft but very sure. Kallian shot him a sidelong look. The smile he offered her didn't reach his eyes. "You've seen the darkspawn, but you haven't seen the Deep Roads. Apart from the dwarves and the Wardens, few ever do so and live. The king has. Your sister has. They know why it must be so." He shook his head. "I did not understand, before. But now I do. We do what we do because we must. Because _someone_ must, lest the world we know be lost forever. There's a reason the Wardens' motto is _In war, victory_, your grace, and it's not a boast. It's because we cannot afford to lose."

_In war, victory. In peace, vigilance. In death, sacrifice_. "Well said, brother," Kallian said, quietly. "But we're here to wish the teyrn joy of his betrothal. This is hardly an occasion to dwell on our harsh necessities."

"But darkspawn are such a _fun_ topic of conversation." Fergus's grin reminded her briefly of Alistair. Ser Tirien chuckled. Lady Gilmore sniffed and directed a quelling look up the table at her liegelord; Alfstanna merely exchanged resigned glances with Ser Gabran, shaking her head with tolerant amusement.

The two girls only looked baffled; Ethelfred, a little horrified. _Bad Teyrn Cousland. You shouldn't terrify your bride before you're even formally betrothed._

He definitely had his sister's sense of humour. At least his losses hadn't turned him grim and brooding and prone to fits of bleak rage, as rumour said of Arl Wulf.

Dinner proceeded apace. It transpired that Lady Ethelfred's mother had died last year, of a sickness; that Alfstanna's brother Ser Irminric was recovering in the care of Waking Sea's town chantry, and that Ser Tirien's nephews were in the process of making advantageous marriages in the Marches. Kallian found herself called upon to carve the roast - half a full-grown boar - and silently blessed Varel for his instruction in etiquette. Neither the alienage nor the Blight had prepared her for taking meals at a table where she _cared_ about offending the lord.

Making conversation was, as always, excruciating. During the Blight, Leliana and Alistair had had her back, and since they were already wanted outcasts... Well, she could kill or intimidate her way out of awkward encounters. Or fall back on the threat of it, at least. In Denerim, she'd relied on her fearsome status as the Psychotic Homicidal Warden Elf, the queen's support, and the bard's political savvy to avoid the worst pitfalls of polite conversation. But Leliana had vanished to Orlais in answer to the Divine's insistent letter, and both the Crown and the Wardens _needed_ Fergus Cousland and the good will of the bannorn. For the most part she could address herself to her food, counting on the famous appetite of Grey Wardens to excuse her inattention, but Ethelfred's stiff politeness, Lady Gilmore's disapproving sniffs, and Fergus's palpable - if suppressed - discomfort with addressing Nathaniel directly grated on her nerves.

And Lady Marjorie's constant shy sidelong glances tried her patience.

Finally, impatience got the better of her. She speared a carrot on her eating knife and meet the next sideways glance directly. "If you have something to say, Lady Marjorie," she said, mild and quiet, "then say it. I don't bite."

"Please, it's just Jorie." The girl flushed to her freckled temples. "Lady Marjorie's my mother's name. And I'm sorry, Commander. It's just, I've never met a Grey Warden before. My Nan used to tell me stories of Garahel and the Fourth Blight - and about the griffons. Is it true that Grey Wardens used to ride them in battle?"

"So I'm told." Kallian gentled her tone. _Be nice, Tabris. She's just a kid. _"As far as I know, they all died out. Alistair - King Alistair, I mean - has a theory that it might be like with the dragons, that they might come back. I can't imagine it, myself." She grinned as a thought occurred to her. "Pray they don't. Or at least, that they don't until His Majesty has an heir. If I know Alistair, there'd be no keeping His Majesty away from the Wardens if it meant the chance to ride a griffon - and I suspect _Her _Majesty would be tempted to join him."

Cousland eyed her sidelong. "You really _do _know my sister."

"Do you really," Lady Ethelfred said, coldly, a challenging jut to her chin, "believe the king would abandon his duties?"

_Remember Habren Bryland. It could be worse._ "His duties?" Kallian raised her eyebrows. "Never that." _He might fail, or die, but he won't run. Lissa would never let him. _"But if the Wardens rode griffons still, Eamon and I would've had a far harder job persuading him to let his name be put forward as king."

"I imagine you'd have an easier time finding recruits as well." Alfstanna lifted her winecup, eyes bright. "Many would venture a great deal for the chance to fly."

"Who'd give up their family and position for anything?" Ethelfred sniffed, disdainful. "_Much_ less a life of fighting?" A calculated pause, in which her glance took in Kallian's ears and Nathaniel's face. "Well, if they _have_ family and position, that is."

"You'd be surprised." Kallian made her voice stay mild, though it was an effort. "According to the records at Soldier's Peak, the Grey has been home to arls' sons and kings' daughters before. To say nothing of dwarven deshyrs." Her mouth quirked, humourless. "I suppose mages and knife-ears like myself don't count, to your way of thinking. But the Wardens have never had so many volunteers that we could afford to _limit_ our recruiting to respectable sorts. "

Alfstanna directed a quelling look at her half-sister. "The King himself says it is an honour to be asked to join the Wardens, Ethelfred. Although I am curious as to whether you mean to recruit while you're in Highever, Commander?"

"If the teyrn permits." Kallian chased mouthful of succulent boar with a swallow of ale and glanced inquiringly at Fergus. "I'd like to make it known we're looking for volunteers. I know Highever has suffered great losses in the last year - but frankly, so has Amaranthine. We'd barely filled out the ranks of the keep garrison after the _first_ darkspawn attack before the _second_ attack left us with less than half a company's worth of survivors, to say nothing of what the attack on Amaranthine town did to the militia. Even if any of them had the aptitude to make a good Warden, I can spare none of them from their present duties if we hope to rebuild the arling in a timely fashion. Right now, there are four working Wardens left in the whole of Ferelden, and that's not nearly enough to deal with blight thaw." She grimaced. "We've been neglecting the south because there's no one left _in_ the worst blighted areas, but there are still wandering bands of 'spawn in West Hill, as well as south of Lothering, in the Hinterlands. Eventually we'll have to deal with them."

"Just what _does_ make a good Warden?" Ethelfred's voice had an edge to it. Her expression said, _You?_ as clearly as words. Ser Tirien snorted softly, her sideways glance expressing a certain dislike that boded ill for her relationship with her future liege-lady. Kallian found herself feeling warmly disposed towards the captain.

_I marched through war and terror to kill an archdemon, kid. Do you think I care what you see when you look at me?_ Quietly, Kallian said, "Ruthlessness and idealism in about equal measure. A strong stomach. Good reflexes. If Alistair - His Majesty, I mean - were here, he'd probably say that it helps to be at least a _little_ crazy, and since he's the king these days, I'm not really allowed to argue with him anymore."

"As long as you don't poach _all_ my knights and men-at-arms, of course I'll permit you to recruit." Fergus rested his chin on his palm and eyed her sideways. "You don't intend to take too many, I hope?"

"Hardly." A commotion at the door caught Kallian's eye. Habit made her check the hang of her sword at her hip: sweaty pale-faced servingmen - now hastening towards the high table - rarely meant _good_ news. "But if any suitable volunteers make themselves known, I would appreciate your blessing -"

The servant stopped by Fergus's chair and bent to whisper in his ear. Too quiet to be overheard, but Cousland's features went from startlement to hard determination. He shoved back his chair. "Ladies, forgive me, but matters have arisen which require my attention. Ser Tirien, with me. Wardens, if you would join us?"

"What's come up?" Kallian said, softly, as they exited the great hall into a corridor of the keep.

Cousland's face was pale in the wavering lanternlight, mouth a thin pressed line. "Darkspawn. Overran a farmhold three hours east of here." He looked to Ser Tirien. "Tyman's boy ran the message in. He's a steady lad, and he says there are fifty at least. How many men can we have ready to march within the hour?"

_Fifty. _ Kallian sucked in a breath and shared a worried glance with Nathaniel. That was too many for a party of surface stragglers: it meant an open entrance to the Deep Roads. _Which means there could be more at any time. Joy_.

_Andraste's _arse, _it's always _something_._

Tirien shook her head, grim. "Not enough, my lord. Not if we're to leave the keep secure."

"Get me as many as you can. Quickly." As she saluted and strode off in a whirl of skirts, he raised his eyebrows at Kallian. "Can I interest you in a midnight stroll, Tabris?"

Nathaniel snorted before she could answer. "Of course you can, your grace." A sideways ironic look. "The Commander is _always_ eager for darkspawn to kill."

Kallian elbowed him. "_Just_ because I drag you down the Deep Roads every so often to keep in practice... We're Grey Wardens, Fergus. The darkspawn are our job." _Fifty. That's not a promising number._ She touched the bindings of her swordhilt, and made herself grin. "Though if you're offering to help, we won't turn it down."

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_AN: Darkspawn. Always such fun._

_If anyone would like to beta for this story, I'd appreciate another pair of eyes.  
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